OFW families try to discover new talk technology value
by CANDICE CEREZO (Contributor)

MANILA -- FROM pasting stamps to finger-stamping on handheld keypads, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families are discovering that new talk technology has altered much the way they communicate with each other.

“We don’t write letters anymore, not even send each other greeting cards,” Evita Cabusao, mother on her three children working abroad who talk to her and her husband via handheld mobile telephones.

Called cellular phones or cellphones, this new tool has replaced pen, paper, and postage, which the Cabusao household used before when her husband worked in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in the late 70s.

Today, Cabusao talks to her children who migrated to Hawaii five years ago via cellphones.

I find it easier to share problems with my children abroad, Cabusao told the OFW Journalism Consortium.

“They sound as if they’re just near,” she added on the quality of voice exchanged via advanced information and communication technology.

These advancements in ICT boosted communication among Filipinos steeped in valuing family ties. With a hunger to keep close ties with each other, many Filipinos have easily adopted these technologies like changing clothes: from fixed telephone lines to the upcoming third-generation (3G) telephones.

Recently, rival telecommunications companies Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Globe Telecom Inc. tested the 3G technology for cellphones in Cebu City, giving a sneak preview of further changes in the way Filipinos in the country will communicate with some eight million family members living and working in more than 190 countries.

Notably, a study by the Roman Catholic Church-run Scalabrini Migration Center cited that “OFW families also had higher ownership of fixed line telephones and cellphones” and that “children of migrants had higher ownership of cellphones compared to the children of non-migrants”.

Cellular past
IT wasn’t that easy before, former migrant worker Yolanda Cochon recalled.

Cochon said that when she worked in Saudi Arabia for 30 months beginning June 1994, she and her fellow domestic helpers would sneak into their employers’ cars just to call their families in the Philippines.
“Saudis are so strict that they don’t even allow us to call using their phones at home so when we discovered they have phones in their cars, we put our creativity to use,” Cochon said.

She said they had no choice that time because public phone booths were very far from houses of Filipino domestic helpers’ employers.

Cochon remembers bringing coins worth 50 riyals –P300 at today’s exchange rates– when she calls using public phones. She also remembers paying P580 for two-minute long-distance calls patched by a telephone operator.

Cochon said that the cellphone replaced the recorded tapes and letters she and her family swapped when she was still working abroad.

She said she used to send letters every week to her family. She also sent every month a cassette cartridge where she recorded every story, insight and whatever she wanted to tell her family.

Without other means, she looked forward to letters from her family.
“I had no other pastime then but to wait for my children’s and husband’s letters and read them,” Cochon said adding these kept her updated on her family’s goings-on.

Today, Cabusao said being updated takes only minutes.

Cabusao cited an example when her daughter called after breaking up with a fiancée.

“We can more openly talk about our problems now unlike before that we keep on hesitating whether to put our problems in writing because, for sure, they will worry as much as I would,” Cabusao said.

“Sa sulat, mangangayayat ka muna bago mo malaman kung ano ang paliwanag nila sa isang bagay,” she added. [In letters, you get thin and emaciated first before you get an explanation from your family.]

Medium message
WITH the recent release of guidelines by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), OFWs and their families have added a new choice for communicating with each other.

VoIP or Internet Voice is a technology that allows people to make telephone calls using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular (or analog) phone line, according to the US Federal Communications Commission. Some services using VoIP even allows individuals to see each other via digital cameras. VoIP service can be used using a personal computer, laptop computer, ordinary phones, or special handheld telephone units.

Meanwhile, the Cabusao household uses a teleconferencing feature on their cellphones that allows a person to join a conversation of five people. She said it also allows a video feed of the person talking.

Usually, one of her children in Hawaii, either her eldest in Maui working in a fish company office or her twins in Big Island and Honolulu, working as a Walmart cashier and hotel employee, respectively, would initiate the call. They would load a $10-worth phone card that gives them 60 to 90 minutes to talk.

“We consume the $10 in one sitting,” Cabusao said estimating their yearly cellphone bill hitting $520 (P28,600 at P55=$1). The cost excludes phone calls during birthdays, Christmas, and New Year.

But Cabusao said this is inexpensive, costing each of her children only $173.33 or P9,533.15 a year.

Cochon said expenses are nothing for the OFW, especially mothers, “who really try to find ways to communicate with their families.”

“Talking beats homesickness,” she added.

Indeed, for many Filipinos abroad, exchanging information on whatever medium has become as important as breathing. end